To see the full inventory for this show, please go to John Hopkins' artist page.

Haute-Niveau, 28" x 42"

L’Arrivee, 15” x 22”"

JOHN HOPKINS

CARRIERES – QUARRIES OF PROVENCEEXHIBITION

monotype work-on-paper

June 1 – July 8, 2018Opening Reception - Friday, June 1, 2018, 6-9pm

Gurari Collections is pleased to present American artist John Hopkins’ solo exhibition of monotype printmaking in CARRIERES – QUARRIES OF PROVENCE.

To set the context of this exhibition a brief background about the Carrieres and this region is important. Located near Arles and Avignon in the Provence region of France, the stone extracted from the area is of a white slightly calcareous limestone. Named after the town of Les Baux de Provence, the stone’s formation dates back 20 million years. One quarry, Les Grands Fonds, which opened in the 19th century, due to the increased demand for white limestone in building design and construction, closed in 1935 because steel and concrete became more economical to use. Today, Les Grands Fonds is known as the Carrieres de Lumieres - and features artistic light shows using projections on the immense subterranean walls of the quarry.

Light, space, shade, shadow, mass, immensity and monumentality. What do you do when as an artist you confront taking on the challenge to envision/depict these characteristics artistically? John Hopkins has adroitly merged his formal training in art and architecture to create “images that explore the boundaries between abstraction and representation with emphasis on maintaining the unique qualities of light and depth of the carrieres.” He understands the carrieres to be “incidental” architecture, having been carved for utility, yet the residual spaces offer towering expanses of monumental proportion.

His choice of monotype printing in black, white, and grey values, reveal the light, shadows, and textures that he has explored in this series of prints. “The image is created directly on an unprepared plate, and the etching press is used to transfer it onto a sheet of paper.” Each monotype is an original unique work of art.

The artwork in this exhibition was a result of a year-long exploration of the Carrieres. Hopkins' process took him from producing charcoal drawings daily on site, and then using these drawings as a reference for the monotypes, which are the final expression of his investigation.

John Hopkins lives and works in Berkeley, California and Goult, France. He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Yale University and a Masters degree in Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Through Hopkins Studio, John engages his love of producing art and practicing architecture as compatible pursuits.

Gurari Collections invites you to see Carrieres – Quarries of Provence an exhibition of monotype work-on-paper.

Beautifully stained stencils, torn posters, printouts, spray-painted marks, drips, cracks, rust, hinges, beloved faces peering out of flat walls: these urban accumulations occur in many streets in many cities. We often walk by oblivious to their accidental beauty—but with her forty-plus watercolor paintings of captivating wallscapes, Artin invites us to pause and contemplate the ephemeral, the vulnerable, the fragile.

In large, medium, and small-scale format, Artin’s wallscapes will be on display until December 10, together with a selection of blossoming branches and quick figure paintings.

Wendy Artin, Big Pile of Wall Paintings, June 2017

“These are walls that I love to look at and take detours to see again,” says Artin. “Unlike the bas-reliefs from antiquity that I have painted in the past, they will disappear in a matter of months. Like a wild garden, they have no one designer, no master architect. I have taken some liberties moving things around and swapping out certain images, but this is basically how the real walls were as I stood in front of them.

“I try to make the paintings both elegant and clumsy – full of information, but not trompe-l’oeil – in and out of focus, crisp here and watery there. As diverse as faces in a city crowd, there are line drawings, paintings, stencils, photographs — all different ways of portraying people, in all different sizes, like a fairytale. Artistically this gives me freedom to play, to paint in a variety of different ways. I can change the color, the focus; I can allow the watercolor to shine with its full versatility. I can stay right on the edge of illusion, with the image moving back and forth between 2D and 3D: very hand-made paintings of usually machine-generated postings. The layering and different focal points are like improvisational jazz where the sweet themes that you recognize shift and change as you become carried away by the next bit till suddenly there is a new tune, a new picture, a new face.

Wendy Artin, London Blue Amy, 9”x12”, 2017

Many of the walls have images of famous people who died too young: Amy Winehouse, John Lennon, David Bowie, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Muhammed Ali. They are posted or painted in order to remember, to have the people live on, but they are so temporary — pasted paper, stencils! There is something quite touching about the fragility of these pieces of paper that are trying to prolong the too short lives of these idols.“ Fleeting lives, fleeting images — along with the well-known icons are glimpses of Artin’s husband, Bruno Boschin, who died in 2014.

Wendy Artin, NYC Muhammed Ali, John and Yoko, 26”x41”, 2017

Paradoxically, it was Artin’s trip to Athens to see the Parthenon frieze at the new Acropolis Museum that began this new series. On her way to visit the famous sculptures she doubled back to admire a fragment of a wall, with Greek graffiti and a tiny Madonna stencil. The urge to put faces on facades reaches back in time and across cultures – but is their purpose similar?

And in today’s fast traveling world, is there a difference between the walls of different countries? “In Rome, it is almost as though it is just one polite person posting, since there is a respectful space around each image,” Artin notes. “In Paris, there are often images of scantily clad seductive women. In New York, the walls have an irresistible ME FIRST! energy, chaotic layers covering up earlier offerings. Why are they here? Was someone randomly standing by that wall, looking at a magazine, when it occurred to him to cut out and paste up photos of his favorite cars? Did he do it with foresight, intention, a message, a mission? Where did he get the glue? I am interested in what the people who posted were thinking, but even more I am interested in the ultimate combination of different layers and messages and images—the sheer visual joy of marks on a wall that I have sought to translate into marks on a page.”

Artin’s paintings are time capsules and travel pieces. Viewed from one angle, they tell stories that draw you in and want to be completed, and from another become pure dynamism and raw beauty. The mix is dizzying and mysterious like city life seen for the first time.

Wendy Artin, Oleander, 7”x9”, 2016

Artistic Advisor at the American Academy in Rome, Wendy Artin completed her undergraduate studies in French Literature and Painting at the University of Pennsylvania and her Masters of Fine Art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In 2015 she had a solo exhibition, entitled Rocks, Paper, Memory, at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her paintings are collected by Steve Martin, Eric Fischl, April Gornik, Princess Caroline of Monaco, Isabelle Adjani, Howard Stern, John Guare, Adele Chatfield-Taylor, Pierre Passebon, and Jacques Grange. She has exhibited in New York, Boston, Rome, Milan and Paris. Her work has been featured in Pratique Des Arts, American Artist, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Gourmet, Elle Decoration, Cote Sud, French Vogue, Elle, Carnet, and the Boston Globe, among other publications. She has been featured on BRAVO television's Arts & Minds.

Wendy Artin, Callista, 8”x14”, 2017

We invite you to visit WENDY ARTIN – HERE TODAY: Athens, Rome, Paris, London, New York, Artin’s eleventh solo exhibition at Gurari Collections. The exhibition is in our gallery in the South End of Boston, 460B Harrison Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts, 02118.

Derived from street scenes of Paris, New York and London, Mitsushige Nishiwaki’s spirited etchings are characterized by their seemingly naive, innocent, daydream-like sincerity. His etching technique is textured and bold, yet the art has a delicate and whimsical facility about them. Populated by his imagined personalities, the buildings and streetscapes he depicts are familiar to our experiences and senses. Each etching is a narrative that conjures up a singular place where we have been before.

Roofscapes become outward expressions of the lives and activities from within. In some of the artwork, scale relationships are distorted, creating juxtaposing in the composition. This magnifies the story that is being told. Nishiwaki turns urban fabric into a living entity that always engages and reminds us of the familiar.

Beginning in 2009, and self taught in intaglio, Mitsushige Nishiwaki’s etchings are on copper, and for highlighted color, on plastic. He uses German Hahnemuhle paper and Charbonnel etching ink. His larger works are made up of a series of abutting small print plate sizes, providing a visible armature for the artwork.

Nishiwaki is a graduate of Hosei University in Tokyo and received a graduate degree in graphic design while studying in Arizona. He works as an artist and graphic designer in Tokyo. His artwork has been exhibited in Japan, France, England and the United States.Gurari Collections invites you to see From TOKYO – It’s a beautiful day in {PARIS NEW YORK LONDON} an exhibition of etched work-on-paper.